The 2017 Summer Institute of French Cultural Studies will be the thirteenth institute aimed at revitalizing and enriching the teaching of French. “Cultures of Place, Cultures of Space” will be the focal theme of the Institute to be held at Dartmouth in the summer of 2017. The 2017 Summer Institute of French Cultural Studies will be the thirteenth institute aimed at revitalizing and enriching the teaching of French. “Cultures of Place, Cultures of Space” will be the focal theme of the Institute to be held at Dartmouth in the summer of 2017. Every manifestation or contestation of French culture can be situated within a space, whether the geographic space of political borders, the social space of human interaction, the textual space of literature, or the psychic space of the individual mind. Whenever a space is defined or mapped, it is given meaning, turning it into a place, a lieu de mémoire, and thus a site of cultural study. The 2017 Institute will explore the spaces and places of French and francophone cultures. The subtle interaction between space and place has had profound consequences on the practice of everyday life, and the often unarticulated boundaries of space reveal much about the cultural practices of all types — religion, commerce, leisure, politics, the arts, etc. French thinkers throughout the centuries have probed Henri Lefebvre’s triad of the perceived (perçu), conceived (conçu), and lived (vécu) spaces of culture, and we will follow them in exploring the construction of meaning for spaces and places historically (Middle Ages to the present) and globally (the francophone world) by focusing on topics relating to literature, history, philosophy, political science, the visual arts (painting and film) and anthropology.

Directed by Lawrence Kritzman (Dartmouth College) and associate director Brian Reilly (Fordham University) this institute will examine the disciplinary boundaries and pedagogical practices in the teaching of French and Francophone culture in the foreign language classroom by pairing prominent scholars from a variety of fields and different institutions of higher learning from both sides of the Atlantic. The faculty as of today will include scholars from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France: Christian Biet (Université de Paris X-Nanterre); Verena Conley (Harvard University); Suzanne Guerlac (University of California, Berkeley); Jane Hiddleston (Oxford); Michel Jeanneret (Université de Genève); Stephen G. Nichols (The Johns Hopkins University); Philippe Roger (École des hautes études en sciences sociales); Peter Szendy (Université de Paris X-Nanterre); Georges Vigarello (École des hautes études en sciences sociales). Special seminars will also be given by: Lia Brozgal (UCLA); Tom Conley (Harvard University); Marian Hobson (Queen Mary University of London); Pierre Léglise-Costa (Scieces Po); Warren Motte (University of Colorado, Boulder).

The 2017 Institute will provide an opportunity for approximately 25-30 participants from French departments in the US to interact with some of the most distinguished scholars of French and Francophone literature, history and society, philosophy, the visual arts (painting and film), and sociology in order to set new directions in the study and teaching of French culture by examining cultural practices relating to politics from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. The 2017 institute will include daily sessions by institute faculty, guest lectures and weekly workshops devoted to practical application for classroom use and curriculum development based on French language materials used in an interdisciplinary context.